The Last of the Lads

by Rory O’Keeffe

All his mates are happily mortgaged and he’s still swaggering around like Liam Gallagher, back when Liam Gallagher had anything to swagger about.

The 1990s were this gentleman’s lager-fuelled heyday. He was the king of his local, getting the rounds in, glorious in his Umbro sports casuals and classic trainers. But time has not been kind to him: his Stone Roses T-shirt is faded and stretched over his lager and fried food-bloated belly and his rakishly tousled Beatles-meets-soccer star mop is thinning at a disturbing rate. He now looks less like a bass player from a Britpop band than a bag man for a third division drug gang.

Much like his taste in clothes and attitude to women, his career has also failed to mature. Not that there is anything wrong with managing a branch of Mobiles ‘R’ Us. He can turn up half pissed from the night before and his ‘team’ think he’s ‘the man.’ Especially on payday. So what if they are all at least 12 years younger than him and find it a little creepy that he refers to them as his ‘dogs.’

It’s only when he gets together with his old mates and their wives (and children) that reality comes crashing down on him. But that doesn’t happen that often since he set fire to himself with a flaming Sambuca during an impassioned rendition of Wonderwall; not a pretty sight at a christening on a Sunday afternoon.

The Last Lad is a cautionary tale for any man who enjoyed his 20s too much. You need to be an actual hard man if you are going to wear a tracksuit in your 40s.